A motley collection of random bits, mostly useless, but tidily hoarded: some hand-spun.
Also featuring the occasional string bag.

Friday, July 20, 2007

20 July: Outdoors and in

Change and impermanence - the garden is a constant reminder. The plants have been doing their best in difficult weather conditions. We have potatoes this year, but next year should it be maize, or rice?

The paler buddleia is fully out, though the darker one is only just starting. No butterflies when I took this photo, but lots of bees (too shy to be photographed).

Elsewhere I have seen rowan trees with ripe berries. Ours is not so precocious. There are several day lilies in the borders. This one has brown shades in the bud, then opens yellow -

The sweet williams sown last year, which looked so straggly and pathetic last autumn, have come good. They are the major splash of colour in several corners.

And the sole survivor of the packet of cornflower seeds now has several flowers. The other seeds fed pigeons or mice, this one, among the low branches of the little apple tree, is feeding a stripy insect -

And, in response to popular request (well, Granny J), here are a couple of poor pics of the new bathroom curtain. By the way, it's an English bathroom, and therefore actually has a bathtub in it, as well as a washbasin and WC. This one is with flash and washes the colour out -

The paler colour at the side is the chiffon, which makes a layer behind the fancy silk. The following picture is without flash, but with the halogen lights on, and has a yellow cast , but it shows the beads and embroidery quite well. The real colour is somewhere in between.

Ha ha, yes. I wish I'd planted rice this year, or watercress. It's been wet enough for it. I just planted two sweet pepper plants, as an act of hope and defiance of the weather. They'll die of course, never mind bear fruit, but it made me feel better than just shaking my fist at the clouds.